Workshop on Financial Auditing for Internal Auditors

Program overview:

Financial audit is an objective examination and evaluation of the financial statements of an organization to make sure that the financial records are a fair and accurate representation of the transactions they claim to represent. The audit can be conducted internally by employees of the organization or externally by an outside Certified Public Accountant (CPA) firm. This course is designed for participants to learn how key business functions interact with accounting processes, particularly in risk management, as well as how technology impacts financial auditing and reporting. They will gain experience in calculating key ratios and analyzing trends over time as well as performing risk assessments and how to identify possible instances of fraud. 

For Whom:

This program on risk based internal audit is designed for internal auditors, senior internal auditors, internal audit managers, internal audit directors, chief audit executives, risk management professionals and risk managers

Learning objectives:

At the end of the program, participants will be able to:

• learn how key business processes relates to financial statements;
• evaluate the impact of technology on financial auditing;
• analyze organization’s financial statements using case study exercises;
• calculate key ratios and analyze trends over time; explain common recipes of book cooking and engage in historic and current fraud cases; and

• recognize “red flags” in financial statement reporting.

Course outline:

 Day 1: ACCOUNTING AND AUDITING REVIEW

• Define key accounting terms.
• Understand accounting rules, equations, and basic principles.
• Demonstrate how journal entries are used for accounting purposes.
• Discuss the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB’s) GAAP hierarchy according to FASB Statement No. 162.
• Perform a risk assessment using the financial auditing process.
• Evaluate controls in the audit process by using finance-related management assertions.
• Review an IIA Practice Guide about formulating and expressing internal audit opinions.

 Day 2: FINANCIAL STATEMENTS — AN OVERVIEW

• Review the characteristics of key financial statements.
• Recognize the flow of information from source documents to financial statements.
• Identify the components of a financial balance sheet.
• Distinguish where in an income statement financial accounts should appear.

• Calculate key ratios from a company’s financial statements.

 Day 3: BUSINESS PROCESSES AND ACCOUNTING

• Differentiate between management-level reporting and consolidated financial statement-level reporting.

• Analyze data using horizontal and vertical analysis.
• Describe revenue process activities and associated rules.
• Describe procurement process activities and associated rules.
• Describe fixed asset process activities and associated rules.
• Recall key revenue, liability, and inventory-related ratios.
• Practice using a risk assessment template to analyze risks, and design and test controls.

 Day 4: RECIPES FOR COOKING THE BOOKS

• Identify the basic elements of an accounting scandal (fraud).

• Identify the five most common financial “games.”
• Calculate financial indices to use in analyzing data.

 Day 5: TECHNOLOGY AND ACCOUNTING

• Discuss the risks and control breakdowns of

User-developed

Applications (UDAs) and best practices for controls over UDAs

• Describe how to minimize risk and limit exposure in using spreadsheets.

• Discuss how Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) supports and automates business processes.

• Identify audit techniques to use in performing an application review of a financial audit

 Training Methodology: Lectures, discussions, exercises, case studies, audio-visual aids will be used to reinforce these teaching/learning methods

Our facilitators are seasoned industry experts with years of experience, working as professional and trainers in these fields.